From the back, they look like they have just not been looked after, but the fronts (especially the top left one) intrigued me. On closer inspection, they were buttons from the uniform of someone in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (bomb disposal), and the marks looked like something shrapnel would have done.
They were the buttons from the army uniform of Great Uncle James Donald Bradley - Donald to his family.
This is Donald wearing his uniform with the buttons. I am missing 3 small ones and two large ones. At the time of his death Donald wasn't wearing the uniform, but a bomb did kill him.
On the 26th April 1939, Donald joined the RAOC, signing on for 4 years. On the 20th March 1940 he was posted overseas with the Scottish 58th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment. He was then plucked out of the water at Dunkirk on 2nd June 1940 and sent with the rest of his remaining comrades to Penhale Camp, Perranporth, Cornwall.
Donald had two passions, swimming and poker. His strong swimming ability saved his life at Dunkirk, rumours are that he was in the water for a day and helped save the lives of many of his comrades. Penhale Camp was (it has now been redeveloped) on the north shore of Cornwall with an enviable beach and surfing waters.
On 7th July 1940, the day he died, he was on his way to the beach when he stopped to watch a high stake poker game. At the same time, a German bomber was on his way back to Germany and had some bombs still on board. He dropped them over Penhale Camp, one of them near to the poker game. Donald, unlike some of his comrades, didn't die straight away. He later died of his wounds at Newquay and District Hospital.
As he was on his way to the beach, he would not have been wearing the uniform. But was it in his locker? Were the buttons given to his family and have been kept all this time? I will never know. But they are buttons, they have a family history connection, I love buttons and I love family history, what a great way of connecting people to their long lost family?
This is me at Donald's Grave side
This is the field at Penhale Camp, where the bomb dropped.
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